Games Retail Guide 2011

MCV's annual High Street directory provides an overview of every buying team for each key UK video games retailer, as well as up-to-date store counts, company profiles and contact details.

Game and Gamestation

The UK's leading specialist games retailer has had a tough year, with sales falling by 9.8 per cent for its last financial year.But the firm has a plan – one that was outlined in detail in February this year – to grow its digital and online business.

Already sales from digital product has grown 28 per cent year-on-year, and GAME has plans to be more active with its loyalty card customers, all 17.3m of them. GAME also collected the MCV Award for specialist retailer in April.

There’s been a few changes at the group over the last year, namely the recent news that UK chief Martyn Gibbs is to depart and be replaced by former Vodafone man Tom Devine.

In the buying team Charlotte Knight has been promoted from head of format buying to head of category management, while former head of buying for third-party Kathryn Jarvis has moved to the retailer’s Sydney office as commercial manager.

A number of new account managers and category managers have joined, including former Sainsbury’s man Nick Arran. Mandip Bhachoo and Alison Fraser are key account managers, while Ross Thompson has the role of senior category manager for Microsoft, PC and peripherals.

The UK’s biggest supermarket continues to devote significant resource to its video games team. Its games buying department has grown to over ten experienced retail veterans.

The big changes includes John Stanhope moving over to toys and Sarah Kaye taking on his role as senior buying manager. Alison Scanlon and Jo Unitt have joined as games buyer and assistant games buyer respectively, while Jonathan Hayes has joined from HMV as buying manager.

Over the past year, Tesco has drastically improved its in-store execution for games and rolled-out its a pre-owned offer to multiple stores.

Entertainment retailer HMV has had a tough time over the past 12 months.

The High Street Group saw a weak Christmas trading period in 2010. It issued a number of profit warnings before selling off its book chain Waterstone’s for £53m. But having sold HMV Canada and securing a banking facility, the company has some breathing room.

The games team has seen a number of changes over the past 12 months, with Michael Neil becoming commercial director and Jonathan Hayes departing for Tesco. Richard Thompson has been promoted to games buyer.

As a result of its troubles, HMV is looking to close a number of stores, whilst also invest in technology, ticketing, live music and digital.

The supermarket has always been committed to the games market, and in the past year has grown its offer and rolled out its pre-owned range into many of its stores.

In terms of personnel, The supermarket has brought in trading assistant Luke Ashton, peripherals buyer and pre-owned manager Greg Walton as well as games buyers Duncan Tate and Dave Wilson over the past 12 months. The latter has over 25 years’ games buying experience. Tate moved over to the buying team internally from Asda’s DVD team.

The Asda team is now looking to the web, with Asda’s former games buyer Alastair Islip and former Gamestation man Frazer Locke tasked with growing the firm’s business online.

MCV is the leading trade news and community site for all professionals working within the UK and international video games market. It reaches everyone from store manager to CEO, covering the entire industry. MCV is published by NewBay Media, which specialises in entertainment, leisure and technology markets.